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Vague Identity: Evans Misunderstood

Author(s): David Lewis


Source: Analysis, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jun., 1988), pp. 128-130
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Committee
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3328214
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128 ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
E. W. Adams (1975). TheLogicof Conditionals: An Applicationof Probabilityto Deductive
Logic,Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
E. W. Adams (1976). 'Prior Probabilities and Counterfactual Conditionals', in W.
Harper and C. W. Hooker (eds.), Foundationsof ProbabilityTheory,StatisticalInfer-
enceand StatisticalTheoriesof Science,Vol. I, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
D. Lewis (1974). Counterfactuals, Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
B. Skyrms (1980). CausalNecessity,New Haven: Yale University Press.
R. Stalnaker (1968). 'A Theory of Conditionals', in N. Rescher (ed.), Studiesin
LogicalTheory,Oxford: Blackwell.

VAGUE IDENTITY:EVANS MISUNDERSTOOD

By DAVID LEWIS
EVANS's article 'Can There be
Vague Objects?'([1]) is
GARETH
over-brief, cryptic, and often misunderstood.' As misunder-
stood, Evans is a pitiful figure: a 'technical philosopher' out of
control of his technicalities, taken in by a fallacious proof of an
absurd conclusion. Rightly understood, Evans endorses neither the
bad proof nor the bad conclusion. Instead he is making a good
argument in favour of a very different conclusion. To honour his
memory, and to make his point more clearly available, it is worth
setting the record straight.
Evans discusses a purported proof that there can be no such
thing as a vague identity statement. There are two problems
about this proof. One problem is that its conclusion is plainly
false. There are vague identity statements. Example:
'Princeton = Princeton Borough'. (It is unsettled whether the name
'Princeton' denotes just the Borough, the Borough plus the sur-
rounding Township, or one of countless somewhat larger regions.)
The other problem is that if we understand vagueness as semantic
indeterminacy, a deficiency in our language, we can diagnose a fal-
lacy. The proof twice invokes an alleged equivalence between
statements of the forms (1) and (2):

(1) it is vague whether ... a...,


symbolized as V(... a...),
(2) a is such that it is vague whether ... it ...,
symbolized as ^V(... x...)a.
If vagueness is semantic indeterminacy, then wherever we have
vague statements, we have several alternative precisifications of
'The misunderstanding I have in mind can be found in about half of the
published discussions of 'Can There Be Vague Objects?' known to me; though
never, I think, in the pages of Analysis.
EVANS MISUNDERSTOOD 129
the vague language involved, all with equal claim to being
'intended'. These alternative precisifications play a role analogous
to alternative worlds in modal logic. The operator 'it is vague
whether...' is analogous to an operator of contingency, and
means 'it is true on some but not all of the precisifications that...'.
A term like 'Princeton' that denotes different things on different
precisifications is, analogically speaking, non-rigid. When a is non-
rigid, the alleged equivalence between (1) and (2) is fallacious. It is
analogous to the fallacious modal equivalence between 'It is
contingent whether the number of planets is nine' (true) and 'The
number of planets is such that it is contingent whether it is nine'
(false), or between 'It is contingent whether the number of planets
is the number of planets' (false) and 'The number of planets is
such that it is contingent whether it is the number of planets'
(true). For a fuller discussion see Thomason [2].
The misunderstanding is that Evans overlooks the fallacy,
endorses the proof, and embraces the absurd conclusion that there
can be no vague identity statements. Besides ascribing folly to a
man who was no fool, this interpretation makes nonsense of the
title and first paragraph of Evans's article:
Can Therebe VagueObjects? It is sometimes said that the world might itself
be vague. Rather than vagueness being a deficiency in our mode of
describing the world, it would then be a necessary feature of any true
description of it. It is also said that amongst the statements which may
not have a determinate truth value as a result of their vagueness are
identity statements. Combining these two views we would arrive at the
idea that the world might contain certain objects about which it is a fact
that they have fuzzy boundaries.But is this idea coherent?
How could Evans think that the purported proof - which
occupies the rest of the article - addresses his question whether
vagueness is due to vague objects, as opposed to vagueness in our
mode of describing? A proof that there cannot be vague identity
statements would be trouble for the vagueness-in-describing view,
no less than for vague objects.
The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts the reader -
unwisely! - to join him in taking for granted that there are vague
identity statements, that a proof to the contrary cannot be right,
and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of
the fallacy. His point is that the vague-objects view cannot accept
this diagnosis, because it says that a name like 'Princeton' rigidly
denotes a certain vague object. In fact, the vague-objects view does
not afford any diagnosis of the fallacy, so it is stuck with the
unwelcome proof of an absurd conclusion, so it is in bad trouble.
(Or better, what is in trouble is the value-objects view combined
with the view that vague identity yields identity statements with
indeterminate truth value.) On this interpretation, every bit of
what Evans says fits into place. However, he has left some
important things unsaid.
130 ANALYSIS
You might think that charity can be overdone and the textual
evidence is inconclusive. One way, Evans comes out saying too
much; the other way, too little. What's to choose?
Therefore I end by reporting an exchange of letters in 1978 that
ought to settle the matter. A friend sent me a draft taking Evans to
task for overlooking the fallacy, endorsing the proof, and embrac-
ing the conclusion. I wrote back, hesitantly proposing the interpre-
tation that I have here called correct; and I sent a copy (with my
friend's name blanked out) to Evans. Evans replied: 'Exactly!Just
so! Yes, Yes, Yes! I am covered with relief that you see so clearly
what I was doing.., .and that you were able to ward off the mis-
understanding of Anonymous so effectively.'2
PrincetonUniversity ? DAVID LEWIS1988
Princeton,NJ08544,
U.S.A.
REFERENCES

[1] Gareth Evans, 'Can There Be Vague Objects?'Analysis38 (1978) 208; reprinted
in Gareth Evans, CollectedPapers,Oxford University Press, 1985.
[2] Richmond Thomason, 'Identity and Vagueness', PhilosophicalStudies42 (1982)
329-32.

21 thank Antonia Phillips for her kind permission to quote this passage.

VAGUENESSAND IDENTITY

By B.J. GARRETT

thesis that there can be vague objects is the thesis that


THE
there can be identity statements which are indeterminate in
truth-value (i.e. neither true nor false) as a result of vagueness (as
opposed e.g. to reference-failure), the singular termsof whichdo not
fixed byvaguedescriptivemeans.'(If this is not what
have theirreferences
is meant by the thesis that there can be vague objects, it is not
clear what is meant by it.) The possibility of vague objects should
not be taken, in itself, to imply the more radical thesis that the
identity relation can be one of degree.One can hold that the
'It seems uncontentious that there can be vague identity statements the vague-
ness of which is a consequence of the vagueness of their component singular
terms - e.g. 'the greatest ruler was the wisest ruler' (Wiggins, p. 174).

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